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2024 Seattle Sounders FC Season
The 2024 season is the sixteenth season for Seattle Sounders FC in Major League Soccer (MLS), the top flight of professional club soccer in the United States. It will be the 41st season for a professional team bearing the Sounders name, which had originated in 1974 with the first incarnation of the franchise. The team remains under the management of Brian Schmetzer in his eighth full MLS season as head coach of the Sounders. Background The Sounders finished second in the Western Conference during the 2023 regular season and qualified for the MLS Cup Playoffs after missing the 2022 edition. The team were eliminated in the Conference Semifinals by Los Angeles FC, which ended a 19-match home unbeaten streak in the playoffs. Throughout the year, Seattle had one of the best defenses in MLS but were unable to produce many goals, especially during the absence of Cristian Roldan. The roster had not changed significantly during the year due to salary cap constraints and largely was ret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seattle Sounders FC
Seattle Sounders Football Club is an American professional men's soccer club based in Seattle. The Sounders compete as a member of the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). The club was established on November 13, 2007, and began play in 2009 as an MLS expansion team. The Sounders are a phoenix club, carrying the same name as the original Sounders franchise that competed in the North American Soccer League (NASL) from 1974 to 1983. The club's majority owner is Adrian Hanauer, and its minority owners are the estate of Paul Allen, Drew Carey, and 14 families from the Seattle area. Former USL Sounders coach and assistant coach Brian Schmetzer took over as head coach in July 2016 after the departure of Sigi Schmid. The Sounders play their home league matches at Lumen Field, with a reduced capacity of 37,722 seats for most matches. Along with several organized groups, a 53-member marching band called "Sound Wave" supports the club at each home match. Seattle has long ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2023 MLS Cup Playoffs
The 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs (branded as the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs for sponsorship reasons) was the post-season championship of Major League Soccer (MLS), the top soccer league in the United States and Canada. It was the 28th edition of the MLS Cup Playoffs, the tournament culminating at the end of the 2023 season. The playoffs began on October 25 and concluded with MLS Cup 2023 on December 9. Los Angeles FC entered the playoffs as the defending MLS Cup champions. FC Cincinnati entered as Supporters' Shield winners, but were eliminated by Columbus Crew in the Conference Finals. Charlotte FC and St. Louis City SC reached the MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time in 2023, the latter qualifying in their debut MLS season. Columbus Crew won a third MLS Cup title after defeating Los Angeles FC 2–1. Format The playoffs featured a new format from previous years with an expanded field of 18 teams—the top nine teams from each conference. The eighth and ninth-placed teams in each confere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Agency
In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is allowed to solicit offers from other teams. In some circumstances, the free agent's options are limited by league rules. Types Terms Unrestricted free agent Unrestricted free agents are players without a team. They have either been released from their club, had the term of their contract expire without a renewal, or were not chosen in a league's draft of amateur players. These people, generally speaking, are free to entertain offers from all other teams in the player's most recent league and elsewhere and to decide with whom to sign a contract. Players who have been bought out of league standard contracts may have restrictions within that league, such as not being able to sign with the buy-out club for a period of time in the NHL, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Athletic
''The Athletic'' is a subscription-based sports website that provides national and local coverage in 47 North American cities as well as the United Kingdom. ''The Athletic'' also covers national stories from top professional and college sports (National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, NCAA football, NCAA basketball (U.S. only), National Hockey League, mixed martial arts, Major League Soccer (U.S. and Canada only) and association football (U.K. edition only). ''The Athletic''s coverage focuses on a mix of long-form journalism, original reporting, and in-depth analysis. Its business model is predicated on dis-aggregating the sports section of local newspapers and reaching non-local fans not reached by a local newspaper. History ''The Athletic'' was founded by Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, former coworkers at subscription-based fitness company Strava, with the mission of producing "smarter coverage for die-hard fans." The compa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Designated Player Rule
The Designated Player Rule, nicknamed the Beckham Rule, allows Major League Soccer franchises to sign up to three players that would be considered outside their salary cap (either by offering the player higher wages or by paying a transfer fee for the player). The rule, which was adopted ahead of the 2007 MLS season, enables teams to compete for star players in the international football market. The rule is one of two mechanisms by which MLS teams may exceed their salary cap, the other being allocation money. As of December 2019, there have been 209 Designated Players in league history. The rule is informally named after David Beckham, in anticipation of MLS teams signing lucrative deals with internationally recognized players, after Beckham entered into negotiations to join the league. Beckham was the first player signed under this rule, signing a five-year contract with the Los Angeles Galaxy with a guaranteed annual salary of $6.5 million. History The team salary cap was est ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicolás Lodeiro
Marcelo Nicolás Lodeiro Benítez (; born 21 March 1989), commonly known as Nicolás Lodeiro, is a Uruguayan professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for MLS club Seattle Sounders FC and the Uruguay national team. Lodeiro has played professionally in Uruguay, the Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, and the United States, winning the Eredivisie in both of his seasons at Ajax, and winning the domestic double in 2015 with Boca Juniors. He also won titles with Nacional and Botafogo, as well as the 2016 and 2019 MLS Cup with Seattle. A full international since 2009, Lodeiro has earned 60 caps for Uruguay. He has taken part in two FIFA World Cups with the national side, as well as four editions of the Copa América, the 2012 Summer Olympics, and the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, in which Uruguay finished fourth. He was also part of the teams which placed fourth in the 2010 FIFA World Cup and won the 2011 Copa América. Club career Early career Lodeiro was born i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tacoma Defiance
Tacoma Defiance, formerly Seattle Sounders FC 2, is an American professional soccer team based in Tacoma, Washington, U.S. that competes in the MLS Next Pro, the third tier of the national soccer pyramid, as the reserve team of Seattle Sounders FC. The Defiance is operated by The Baseball Club of Tacoma (operator/owner of the Tacoma Rainiers) and managed by Seattle Sounders FC, while 20 percent of the club is fan-owned through the non-profit Sounders Community Trust. The club was established in 2014 as Seattle Sounders FC 2 (S2) and originally played at Starfire Sports in Tukwila, Washington. The team moved to Tacoma's Cheney Stadium in 2018 and was rebranded as the Defiance the following season. The Defiance plans to move into a new soccer-specific stadium near Cheney Stadium in the 2020s. History The club was announced on October 14, 2014 at an event held at the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum and began play in 2015 at the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila. Sounders assist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tukwila, Washington
Tukwila ( ) is a suburban city in King County, Washington, United States, located immediately to the south of Seattle. The population was 21,798 at the 2020 census. Tukwila is a community of communities, with residents of many diverse origins living in the city. A large commercial center draws workers and consumers to the city daily; industry thrives with the confluence of rivers, freeways, railroads, and Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. History The earliest people in Tukwila were the Duwamish, who made their homes along the Black and Duwamish rivers. The name "Tukwila" is the Chinook Jargon word for "nut" or "hazelnut", referring to the hazelnut trees that grew in the area. The Duwamish lived in cedar longhouses, hunted and fished, picked wild berries, and used the river for trade with neighboring peoples. In 1853, the first white settler was Joseph Foster, a Canadian pioneer who had traveled to the Pacific Northwest from Wisconsin. Foster would become known as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Starfire Sports
Starfire Sports is a multi-purpose stadium and sporting facility in Tukwila, Washington, United States. It is located on the banks of the Green River, just south of Seattle. The stadium is operated by the nonprofit corporation Starfire Sports and is home to several soccer and rugby teams. At the time of its opening, CEO Chris Slatt claimed it was "the largest synthetic-turf soccer complex in the U.S." The MLS team Seattle Sounders FC has offices and training facilities at the complex, and stages Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup matches at the main stadium. Their affiliate team, Tacoma Defiance, played at Starfire from 2015 to 2017 and return from 2022. The Seattle franchise of Major League Rugby, the Seattle Seawolves, began play at Starfire Sports in spring 2018. History The site was formerly Fort Dent Park, operated by King County. In addition to the existing grass soccer fields, the park included a cricket pitch and softball fields in the areas now occupied by artificial-surface soc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renton, Washington
Renton is a city in King County, Washington, and an inner-ring suburb of Seattle. Situated southeast of downtown Seattle, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington, at the mouth of the Cedar River. As of the 2020 census, the population of Renton was 106,785, up from 90,927 at the 2010 census. The city is currently the sixth-largest municipality in greater Seattle and the ninth-largest in Washington state. After a long history as an important salmon fishing area for Native Americans, Renton was first settled by people of European descent in the 1860s. Its early economy was based on coal mining, clay production, and timber export. Today, Renton is best known as the final assembly point for the Boeing 737 family of commercial airplanes, but it is also home to a growing number of well-known manufacturing, technology, and healthcare organizations, including Boeing Commercial Airplanes Division, Paccar, Kaiser Permanente, IKEA, Providence Health & Services, UW Me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Longacres
Longacres was a Thoroughbred horse racetrack in Renton, Washington, United States. Owned by the Gottstein/Alhadeff family and operated by the Washington Jockey Club for the vast majority of its existence, the racetrack was the home of Thoroughbred racing in Western Washington from its opening in 1933 and was the longest continuously running track on the West Coast upon its closure. Until 1971, it was also the only place in Western Washington where gambling was legal. Notable races held at the racetrack include the Longacres Mile Handicap and the Gottstein Futurity. After several years of losses due to increasing gambling and entertainment competition, the property was sold to Boeing in 1990. Boeing allowed the track to operate for two more years after the sale until the end of the 1992 season; the company demolished its structures in 1995. Boeing eventually built a new headquarters for its Commercial Airplanes division on the property along with a customer-training center ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2022 Seattle Sounders FC Season
The 2022 season was Seattle Sounders FC's 14th in Major League Soccer (MLS), the top flight of American club soccer. It was the 39th season played by a professional team bearing the Sounders name. The team was under the management of Brian Schmetzer in his sixth full MLS season as head coach of the Sounders. In early May, the Sounders won the CONCACAF Champions League title after defeating UNAM of the Liga MX 5–2 in aggregate scoring, becoming the first team in Major League Soccer to win the CONCACAF Champions League. The season ended with the team missing the MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time in the league, snapping a 13-year streak that was the longest active streak in MLS history. The Sounders last missed the playoffs in 2006 as a second-division club in the USL First Division. The team also failed to win in their final nine road matches from July through the end of the season. Summary Preseason During the offseason, the Sounders hired former player Andy Rose as an ass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
